Fort Collins residents to study impact of trains

Fort Collins and the trains that traverse its streets have a complicated, love-hate kind of relationship.

One downtown restaurant embraces the railroad, offering patrons the chance to take a “train shot” when the deafening whistle sounds. Other establishments loathe the lumbering beast and wish it would go away.

In large measure, residents and businesses are used to the trains, which are as much a part of Fort Collins’ fabric as Colorado State University and the Poudre River.

“There’s just a general acceptance that that’s the way life is in Fort Collins, and it’s part of the heritage and culture, and sometimes you’re going to get stuck,” said Archie Solsky, owner of Lee’s Cyclery, 202 W. Laurel St., located mere feet from the BNSF Railway tracks along Mason Street. “Ideally, it would be nice if it was moved. But after being here for so long and living here for so long, it’s one of the things you accept.”

How much train traffic, noise and inconvenience residents can or should accept will be a topic of discussion in the coming months.

Fort Collins city government is convening a residents’ group to examine the trains’ impacts on the city, including safety at crossings, train noise and other issues.

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Mark Radtke, government relations director for the city, said he hopes the task force will consult with people from the three railroad companies, the Federal Railroad Administration and other agencies to learn what options Fort Collins has. By the end of October or early November, Radtke hopes the task force will have a report for the City Council.

Chief among the council’s concerns are noise, access for emergency services, and blocked crossing problems along Riverside Avenue, where a major switching yard can cause blocked traffic for upward of 20 minutes.

Reducing noise will be complicated, because a federal law enacted in 2005 requires that trains blow their horns at crossings.

Emergency services have always been a concern, Radtke said. Police officers can take their cruisers home, and fire stations are scattered around the city, so ambulances and police are usually on both sides of the tracks. But police have aired concerns about access.

“This city will always have an issue as long as we have a railroad that bisects it,” Police Chief Dennis Harrison said in a recent interview.

Moving the railroad is impractical because of costs, but the Colorado Department of Transportation has studied moving mainline rail traffic out of the Front Range and onto the eastern plains, Radtke said.

Overpasses or underpasses for vehicle traffic or even the rail lines might also be a topic of discussion.

Fort Collins has bandied about bypass ideas for several years, but efforts have stopped in their tracks.

An underpass was planned at the intersections of Drake Road and the BNSF line as part of the transportation tax issue that went before voters in 2003. Once it was rejected, talk of an underpass became moot, Radtke said.